The Record - Issue 20: Spring 2021

50 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om Survive and thrive Giacom’s Mike Wardell discusses the necessity of partnership in a challenging business landscape and how AI is becoming increasingly important to business survival BY E L LY YAT E S - ROB E R T S T he past year has been uncertain for most businesses, but Mike Wardell, CEO of Giacom, believes it gave businesses a pro- found opportunity to forge relationships that will be there for years to come, both internally and externally. A key part of Giacom’s continued suc- cess, this attitude has enabled the firm to grow business and increase revenue by over 30 per cent during the pandemic. Giacom’s vision is to help its customers improve the effectiveness and efficiency of small and medium-sized businesses by using the right tech- nology. “Our focus has been to continue helping our customers through the minefield of offerings to enable them to provide the right services for the UK businesses they serve,” says Wardell. “As the volume of cloud services grows, this becomes a bigger job.” The pandemic led many businesses to acceler- ate their drive to digital transformation, and take those first steps to migrate to the cloud. But this journey isn’t always easy. “When considering these changes, business leaders should choose a partner that comple- ments their own organisation and helps them identify the areas in need of improvement, allowing them to focus on their customers,” says Wardell. “Companies must be clear on their own value proposition and whichmarket they serve so they can build their cloud practice around this.” Aside from acceleration to the cloud, there are many innovations that have been developed in recent years to transform business operations. “Technology has been a key enabler for allow- ing people to operate in the virtual world, and we’re seeing customers derive real benefit from such innovation, supporting business survival during the ongoing pandemic,” says Wardell. So, what’s next? Wardell believes that there will be a boost in how applications and their developers use artificial intelligence to enable customers to reach their full potential. “We’ve started to see this technology already in chatbots and security products, but I think AI will become more available in everything we use,” he explains. “We’ll continue to see a technology evolution, rather than a revolution, which can only provide great opportunities for us all.” As for Giacom’s future, Wardell expects that its recent acquisition by Digital Wholesale Solutions will help it to meet customer needs and expec- tations more effectively. “We’ll be harnessing the power of the wider group to provide more ser- vices, allowing our customers to access a wider range of offerings and help businesses across the UK to survive and thrive.” I NT E R V I EW “Technology has been a key enabler for allowing people to operate in the virtual world”